# Speech Plan for the All-Russian Congress of Finance Departments of Soviets

Greece," there is "no essential difference" among the governments of the allied powers.
Yes, this is clear, and it is not at all "ethics," as the SRs think, but pure politics. Robbery — that's what you, citizens SRs, citizens Mensheviks, participate in with your participation in the government. Robbery is a fact; "pressure from Allied diplomacy" — all of the Allied, meaning also the Russian — was obviously exerted even after Chernov and Tsereteli and Co. entered the ministry.
And the platform of "peace without annexations"? "And the demands" of "revolutionary democracy" from the new government? And the declarations? Is it not yet clear that all these platforms, declarations, promises, statements, sworn promises, promissory oaths, and so on and so forth — are a complete mockery of the people?
You are laughing at yourselves, gentlemen SRs and Mensheviks! At your own policy of trust in the capitalists and in the government of capitalists! At your own role as eloquent, verbose servants of capitalism and imperialism, clothed in ministerial titles!
I.
ALLIANCE TO HALT THE REVOLUTION.
[June 19 (6), 1917]
By no means everyone understands that the new coalition government is precisely this kind of alliance of capitalists with the leaders of the Narodniks and Mensheviks. It is possible that even the ministers belonging to these latter parties do not understand this. But in the meantime, this is a fact.
And this fact was especially clearly revealed on Sunday, June 4, when reports appeared in the press in the morning about the speeches of Milyukov and Maklakov at a meeting of Third Duma counter-revolutionaries (the so-called, in the tradition of Nicholas Romanov and Stolypin-the-Hangman, "State Duma"), and in the evening, at the All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Soldiers' and Workers' Deputies, ministers Tsereteli and Co. gave speeches in defense of the government, in defense of the policy of the offensive.
Milyukov and Maklakov, as all capitalists and counter-revolutionaries of any worth, are men of action, perfectly

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understanding the meaning of the class struggle when it concerns their class. They therefore posed the question of the offensive with complete clarity, not wasting a minute on the emptiest chatter about the offensive from a strategic point of view, chatter with which Tsereteli deceived himself and others.
No, the Cadets know where the crayfish hibernate. They know that the question of the offensive is not posed by life now as a strategic question at all, but as a political one, as a question of a turning point in the entire Russian revolution. It was precisely politically that the Cadets posed it in the "State Duma," as the Bolsheviks and internationalists in general posed it on Saturday evening, in their written statement to the presidium of the Congress of Soviets.
"The fate of Russia is in her hands," proclaimed Maklakov, known as an associate of Stolypin-the-Hangman, "and this fate will be decided very soon" (true! true!). "If we really succeed in launching an offensive and waging war not only with resolutions, not only with speeches at rallies and banners that are carried around the city, but in waging war as seriously as we waged it before" (listen! listen! these are the historical words of the leader of the capitalists: "as we waged it before"!), "then a complete recovery of Russia will quickly come."
These are remarkable words that must be memorized and thought about many times. They are remarkable because they speak the class truth. Milyukov repeated it, slightly differently, reproaching the Petrograd Soviet, "why doesn't (its) statement say anything about the offensive," emphasizing that the Italian imperialists posed "one modest" (Mr. Milyukov's irony!) "question: will you attack or not? And they did not receive an " (from the Petrograd Soviet) "definite answer to this question either." Maklakov expressed "his deep respect" to Kerensky in this regard, and Milyukov explained this:
"I am very afraid," said Milyukov, "that what has been established by our" (true! our, i.e., in the hands of the capitalists!) "Minister of War will again be disorganized from here, and that we have missed the last time when, to the question of our allies, are we acting or not, we can still" (note this "still"!) "give an answer satisfactory to both us and them."
"Both to us and to them" — both to the Russian and to the Anglo-French and other imperialists! The offensive "can still" "satisfy" them, i.e., help to strangle Persia, Albania, 06

Greece, Mesopotamia, preserve all the spoils plundered from the Germans, and seize the spoils plundered by the German robbers. That is the essence. That is the class truth about the political significance of the offensive. To satisfy the appetites of the imperialists of Russia, England, etc., to prolong the imperialist, predatory war, to go not along the road of peace without annexations (this road is possible only with the continuation of the revolution), but of war for the sake of annexations.
Such is the essence of the offensive from the point of view of foreign policy. And Maklakov, in the historical phrase quoted above, defined this essence from the point of view of domestic policy. "The complete recovery of Russia" in Maklakov's mouth means the complete victory of the counter-revolution. Whoever has not forgotten Maklakov's excellent speeches in the era of 1905 and 1907-1913 received confirmation of this assessment from almost every one of his speeches.
To wage war, "as we waged it before," — "we," i.e., the capitalists with the Tsar at the head! — to wage this war of the imperialists means "to restore Russia to health," i.e., to ensure the victory of the capitalists and landlords.
This is class truth.
The offensive, with all possible outcomes from a military point of view, politically means strengthening the spirit of imperialism, the mood of imperialism, the enthusiasm for imperialism, strengthening the old, unchanged, command staff of the army ("to wage war as we waged it before"), strengthening the basic positions of the counter-revolution.
Completely independent of whether they want it or not, whether they realize it or not, Tsereteli and Kerensky, Skobelev and Chernov — not as individuals, but as leaders of the parties of the Narodniks and Mensheviks — supported the counter-revolution, went over — at this decisive moment — to its side, took a position within the alliance to stop the revolution and to continue the war "as we waged it before."
There is no need to deceive ourselves about this.
III.
FOREIGN POLICY OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION.
June 27 (14), 1917.
There is no more erroneous and more harmful idea than separating foreign from domestic policy. Precisely during wartime

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The monstrous falsehood of such a separation becomes even more monstrous. And the bourgeoisie is doing everything possible and everything impossible to instill and support this idea. The unfamiliarity of the masses of the population with foreign policy is immeasurably more widespread than ignorance in the field of domestic policy. The "secret" of diplomatic relations is sacredly observed in the freest capitalist countries, in the most democratic republics.
The deception of the masses of the people has been artistically developed in relation to "affairs" of foreign policy, and our revolution has to pay dearly for this deception threefold. Millions of copies of bourgeois newspapers spread the poison of deception everywhere.
With one or the other of the two gigantic-rich and gigantic-strong groups of imperialist predators - this is how capitalist reality poses the fundamental question of modern foreign policy. This is how this question is posed by the capitalist class. This is how the question is posed, of course, by the broad petty-bourgeois mass, retaining old capitalist views and prejudices.
To someone whose thought does not go beyond capitalist relations, it is incomprehensible that the working class, if it is conscious, cannot stand for any group of imperialist predators. On the contrary, the worker does not understand the accusations of a tendency to a separate peace with the Germans or of actually serving such a peace, directed against socialists who have remained faithful to the fraternal union of workers of all countries against capitalists of all countries. In no case can such socialists (and therefore the Bolsheviks among them) agree to any separate peace between the capitalists. Neither a separate peace with the German capitalists, nor an alliance with the Anglo-French capitalists - this is the basis of the foreign policy of the conscious proletariat.
Rebelling against this program, fearing a break with "England and France," our Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries are actually pursuing a capitalist program of foreign policy, getting away with decorating this program with flowers of innocent eloquence like "revision of treaties," declarations in favor of "peace without annexations," etc. All these good wishes are doomed to remain empty, because capitalist reality poses the question sharply: either in subordination to the imperialists of one of the groups, or in a revolutionary struggle against all imperialism.